A backplane generally comprises a printed circuit board having a number of card connection slots or bays. Each slot or bay comprises, e.g., one or more modular signal connectors or card edge connectors, mounted on the backplane. A removable circuit board or “card” can be plugged into the connector(s) of each slot. Each removable circuit board contains drivers and receivers necessary for communication of signals across the backplane with corresponding drivers and receivers on other removable circuit boards.
One or more layers of conductive traces are formed on and/or in the backplane. The traces connect to individual signal connection points at the various slots to form data lines and control lines.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/068,622 (the '622 application), entitled “Passive Transmission Line Equalization Using Circuit Board Through-Holes”, filed Feb. 5, 2002, and incorporated herein by reference, the inventor of the present application describes a high-speed router backplane design. This design is applicable to extremely high signaling speeds (it has been tested up to 10 Gbps (Gigabit-per-second) signaling rates), large panel sizes, and high overall throughputs. Many of the features of the embodiments described herein have been incorporated from this prior disclosure.